1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a breaching tool used to breach through an entry obstacle such as a deadbolt, safety chain, etc., wherein a cutting chisel or ram is operationally impacted onto the obstacle via the discharge force from a firearms ammunition blank fired by the device. The tool is reset and a new blank placed into the firing chamber from the firearm's magazine via pump action.
2. Background of the Prior Art
Both police and military personal are often called on to breach a barrier such as a door in order to gain access to an interior of a structure and capture the persons and/or contraband therein. Such a breach must be quick in order to prevent the potential bad guys within the structure from taking a defensive position and attacking those making entry. In a typical structure, such as a house that has a standard deadbolt door thereon, a simple kick in or the use of a small battering ram is usually sufficient to quickly overcome the entry barrier. However, often the entry barrier is hardened such that those seeking entry need more force to disable the entry obstacle than can be supplied by human power alone. In such situations an appropriate machine is called upon to overcome the barrier obstacle.
One method employed to overcome a hardened entry barrier is to use a vehicle. A line, typically a cable or a chain, is tied to the entry obstacle with the other end tied to the vehicle. A winch on the vehicle or the locomotive power of the vehicle itself is used to pull the entry barrier away from the structure and allow personnel to enter. While this method works-quite well in many situations, it is not without its shortcoming. The use of a vehicle requires time to extend the cable or chain between the vehicle and the entry barrier which time can cause the occupants of the structure to detect the operation being performed and the element of surprise vanishes. Additionally, many doors are configured such that it is not practical to attach a chain or cable to such doors in rapid fashion, if at all. Furthermore, in many situations, such as during a combat foot patrol, an available vehicle to perform the pull operation is simply unavailable.
Another entry barrier disabling method uses explosives that are placed at the entry barrier's hardened points, such as the locks and the hinges, such that the explosive detonation disables these points in order to allow easy removal of the door. While effective, this method raises the possibility of collateral damage to both innocents as well as the combatants, which in today's litigious and 24 hour news cycle society is avoided at all costs.
Yet another entry barrier disabling method uses firearms based breaching tools. Essentially, such tools are modified firearms that use a blank firing round which, upon being fired, uses the force from the round's discharge gases to propel a ram with great force and speed at a target such as a lock, with the ram disabling the target. By using the force of a firearm round, a short pulse extremely violent high force burst is achieved by the ram in order to allow breeching of most defensive obstacles. These devices, which can be found in variety of architectures work with varying degrees of effectiveness, however, certain shortcomings can still be found.
One shortcoming is in devices that are pistol based. While a pistol round can expend great energy during discharge, in many hardened targets, such energy falls woefully inadequate to penetrate the defenses of the obstacle being targeted.
Many devices require rather extensive setup steps so that while the first use of the device can be achieved with relative ease, being setup well ahead of the breach attempt, if multiple ram impacts with the device are required, which is the case with many hardened entry barriers, subsequent iterations of the device can take time, which time may simply not be available. Many devices overcome this shortcoming by providing a rapid firing of the device so that some of the discharge gases are used to rechamber a round and reset the bolt carrier assembly for subsequent firings of the device. While effective, such devices require some of the energy from the expended round is used for resetting of the device which lessens the impact force of the ram. Additionally, the rapid firing of the device can be a hazard, especially to a novice user, as the percussive forces occasioned by the device can cause an operator to lose control of the device during rapid firing. Furthermore, these devices fail to assure that a live round, as opposed to a blank round, is not accidentally used with the device. A live round fired by these types of devices can cause catastrophic explosive failure of the device possibly resulting in serious injury or death to the operator and these in close proximity to the device. Such live rounds firing are possible with many prior art devices as such device are add-ons to existing firearms so that the firearm is usable both as a breeching tool and as a standard firearm. Carelessness can inadvertently cause such devices to be loaded with a live round when such live round use is strictly undesired.
What is needed is a firearm based breaching tool that allows an operator to use the high energy expended during a firearms blank round firing, which tool addresses the above mentioned shortcomings currently found in the art. Specially such a tool must allow an operator to be able to quickly and easily use the tool to ram a breach point and thereafter be able to quickly reset the device for additional ram iterations without having to use some of the energy of the discharged round for the resetting operation. Such a device must be able to use high capacity rounds in order to allow the tool to be used against well hardened obstacles. Such a tool must be relatively safe in operation without the potential for the operator to lose control of the device through repeated ramming iterations caused by inadvertent rapid firing of the device. Such a tool must be able to prevent the accidental use of live rounds within the device.